


Growing Pains

by angeleledhwen (kallistei), eledhwen (kallistei)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-24
Updated: 2004-07-24
Packaged: 2018-01-27 01:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1710527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/angeleledhwen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/eledhwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never thought you'd make me perspire/Never thought I'd do you the same/Never thought I'd fill with desire/Never thought I'd feel so ashamed. For hp_remix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Just What You Wanted](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/52478) by random_fangirlp. 



> Beta by [](http://isiscolo.livejournal.com/profile)[**isiscolo**](http://isiscolo.livejournal.com/) and [](http://amanuensis1.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://amanuensis1.livejournal.com/)**amanuensis1**

_At seven, his father patted him on the head and said, "Excellent."_

Praise was rare, hard to earn, and he fairly glowed with pleasure. By seven, he had learned to value it, to be willing to do anything to get it. Anything to hear that tone in his father's voice, to feel that hand on his head, in his hair, unusually gentle. The long fingers that he had inherited rested lightly on his head still, and he fairly squirmed under the pleasure of their touch. This was worth all the hours of work that other children could spend playing, all the shouted curses, all the unkind touches that were incentives to concentrate. This touch was worth anything. Everything.

_He had cursed a chicken and it lay on its side, eyes wide opened, staring at him, looking into him._

He learnt more, new hexes, new curses. And every time, he crept back into the room when he was supposed to be in bed. Without his father's hand to reassure him, he always found the cold, dead eyes strangely unsettling. He felt as though they were looking into him, seeing everything that he was, all the little things, the daily small failures that made him an unworthy son. His father was a great man. He knew that. One day he would be a great man too, a son his father could be proud of. One day, even if he had to look into hundreds of dead eyes for it. One day, he wouldn't be ashamed of what they saw when they looked at him.

_At nine, his mother smiled tightly at him and said, "You have done well."_

Long ago, he had learnt that his mother was weak. His father hurt her easily, and she wept and crumbled in the face of his rage, cowering from his violence. But just as Octavius Snape took his revenge for the perceived injustices of the world from his outwardly submissive wife, she took her revenge on him for his injustices to her. It was a revenge she never dared show him, of course, but he was a proud man, proud of his pure bloodline, however thin and weak it was, proud of his tenuous ties to the great families, proud of the small things he had control over, his family, and she could hurt him there. She flaunted her lovers as overtly as she dared, knowing that others would see what he would not begin to believe his wife would dare do – there were always men who wanted her, near-Squib and not-beautiful as she was - and she used his son to help her.

_He had brought the potion that she had wanted him to make. He did not ask what it was for; he didn't want to know._

He knew his mother was weak, but he needed her love, her care. When his father found fault with everything he had done, hurled imprecations at him when he ran and beat him when he was caught, she taught him the healing charms and potions, held him. And all he had to do for it was learn to make some other potions she wanted, that she was not strong enough to make for herself. If her praise was not quite as satisfying as his father's, at least it was praise, and it filled the empty space inside him that grew when weeks and even months went past with no good word from his father.

_At eleven, when he first stepped into Hogwarts and faced the cold eyes of his fellow schoolmates, hearing the rumours, he found solace in his books and cauldrons._

He would never admit it to anyone as long as he lived, but the Sorting Hat scared him. No, worse. It terrified him. When his name was called and he put it on, he could feel it sifting through everything that he was, everything his parents had made him, and made him do. It was a hundred, a thousand times worse than the cold, critical eyes of the animals he had killed, because it lived in its own way, and commented, seeing everything and judging him. Finding him wanting, placing him in the house that three-quarters of the rest of the school despised, although later his father wrote to congratulate him on his placement, and then he found that he was proud.

_He ignored everything and found his own place amongst his housemates, telling himself that his intelligence and family were the tools to his success._

He told himself that it meant nothing. Less than nothing. The only important thing was to learn, to become powerful. Learning came easily to him here after years of his father driving him, and he knew that one day the whispers would be filled with admiration. Many of his housemates already admired him for his knowledge of the darker curses and potions, and though his blood was not good enough for them to respect him, it was not bad enough for them to have to shun him. Once he had done some favours for the older students in the House, his knowledge and his blood were enough to allow him slowly into the inner circles.

_At twelve, he got into his first fight with James Potter. He got detention and vowed revenge._

The only way he knew how to fight was with magic. James Potter was tall for his age, and seemingly spent half his life on his broomstick and the other half wrestling with the maniac Sirius Black. He had other means of fighting. For example, a punch, not focused enough to do any real harm, but it distracted Severus enough that he dropped his wand. His magic was no use to him without it, and he could not protect himself any other way. He scrambled for his wand as Potter's hangers-on laughed, and cast a curse, any curse, the first one that came to his mind. James Potter spent three days in the infirmary. Severus healed himself. And for that, for defending himself, he was given detention, spent three nights polishing silver.

_At fourteen, he found out about the Polyjuice Potion and spent the summer perfecting it._

He came across the potion mentioned in a history of a long-ago war, read about how one wizard, a leader of one of the armies, had taken the form of his opposite's wife to gain knowledge of his plans. It was far too easy to see how he could use the potion in his long-running battle with James Potter. Everyone knew of his infatuation with the Mudblood girl, and how she would have nothing to do with him. Severus had been looking for a way to use that against him, and it would be only too easy now, knowing of this potion. He could utterly humiliate Potter, with this. All he had to do was convince Potter that he was Evans, and then keep him 'occupied' until the hour passed. His own distaste would be nothing to Potter's horror if he were to find that he'd kissed 'Snivellus', and his 'friends' would doubtless never let him live it down. Severus found instructions on how to make it in one of the books his mother had given him. The only other thing that it required was some work, and he had only too much experience with that. Compared to some of the other potions he'd made, it was barely a challenge at all.

_At fifteen, Severus first heard the word "beautiful" spoken to him._

He brushed past Evans in a corridor and snagged a hair from the back of her robe as he did. Then he waited for his chance. He found it when she began a quiet dalliance with an older Hufflepuff boy. Neither of them, it seemed, was the type to flaunt their affections in public, and she took to making excuses to her friends to sneak off for an hour or two here and there. He chose a day when most of the other students were studying for a Potions test. Potter and his little clique were of course too confident of their influence with the teachers to be doing something as ordinary as study. No, they would, as usual, be lounging around the Gryffindor common room, and this time, 'Lily Evans' would join them.

The excuse of a forgotten book when Evans had said she'd be going to the library, got him into the common room with them. A word from him, in Evans' voice, and Potter gladly took 'her' up to the deserted dormitory to 'talk'. And then 'she' confessed that she was tired of resisting his 'charms', that she longed for nothing else than to be his girlfriend. It was over the top, utterly unbelievable – and Potter swallowed it whole.

Potter touched 'her' hair with a wondering hand. "Lily, you're so beautiful," he whispered. Then he kissed him.

_He ran out of the room, angry tears in his eyes, his heart pounding and hands covering his ears, not believing what he had allowed to happen, hating James Potter all over again._

It should all have been so easy. A little deception, allow some unpleasant things, and then a great reward at the end of it all – his revenge for all the things James Potter had done to him over the years. Instead, he got this – a sick, horrified feeling at the realisation of his own weakness, the knowledge of what a simple word could do to him. How could he have allowed himself to become so caught up in searching for approval that something so little – not even, in truth, directed at him, coming from someone he hated – could affect him so deeply, make him feel _happy_? It was unthinkable. Unacceptable.

At the very least, however, the experience had taught him something. He had learnt to save his search for approval for the ones whose opinions truly made a difference, those who would make or break him. They were the only ones who mattered.


End file.
